A LANDMARK Perry Barr container base is to close in March putting hundreds of jobs at risk.

A LANDMARK Perry Barr container base is to close in March putting hundreds of jobs at risk.

The 20-acre College Road site will be sold off for redevelopment by new owners Maersk.

It includes offices, logistics companies, cafe, taxi firm and 65 tenants who park their lorries on the site.

Perry Barr councillor Ray Hassall described the loss of the container base as a 'blow to the local economy'.

"I am very saddened about the amount of jobs that will be lost," he said. "I really hope that the site does not end up sitting there vacant and be systematically vandalised over a few years." The container base, formerly owned by P&0 Roadways, was one of Britain's first inland ports and was opened in 1968.

However, the site's current owners Scandinavian shipping giant Maersk are set to relocate its operations and jobs to Tamworth.

Company spokesperson Tony Redding said some of the tenants might still be able to park their lorries at or near the site despite the redevelopment plans.

"We may consider providing parking for the lorry drivers who are at Perry Barr but if we do decide to provide that it will be very limited," he said.

The earmarking of the container base for redevelopment is the latest in a long list of giant brownfield sites becoming vacant in Perry Barr in recent years.

The former Avonmore Dairies on the Aldridge Road, site less than a mile away from the container base, is set to be transformed into a new 'learning park' containing a new college and opposite that a retail park is in pipeline on the former Heartlands Ford site. And construction work is still under way at the giant former IMI plant in Witton which is being transformed into the city's largest industrial site The Hub which will consist of warehouses and industrial units.